


Puck

by runswithsourwolf



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: It's about his cat, M/M, Pets, honestly it's not even about Jack, which is better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 12:03:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9122800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runswithsourwolf/pseuds/runswithsourwolf
Summary: How Jack Zimmerman unintentionally de-throned Kitt Purrson as hockey's favorite cat.





	

Jack’s therapist had been suggesting he get a pet for a while now.

He was in a better place mentally than he had probably ever been and he told Bitty everything but the pressure of being in the spotlight again, even more so now than before and having just gotten the A was sure to make things more difficult eventually.

“They won’t judge you. No matter what you do or say. No matter what happens, if you take care of them, they’ll take care of you right back,” Dr. Rayburn had pointed out. “It doesn’t need to be something big or time consuming, even a fish or a gerbil would do. But it might be nice to have someone to come home to who will always love you, especially while your _someone_ is still in school. You don’t have too, but you don’t have any animal allergies and it definitely wouldn’t hurt to consider.”

He hadn’t really considered it.

 

 

He was busy, with the new responsibilities that came with having the A, practice, press, roadies and visiting Samwell. He figured it wouldn’t be a good environment to bring a pet into.

But then one day her ran into his neighbor, an older woman named Emilie, in the hall. He happened to mention to her he was thinking of maybe, eventually getting a pet and she had excitedly offered to come take care of it whenever he was out of town.

“Free of charge, Jack dear. I just love animals and I haven’t had any since Richard passed. You would be doing me a favor. Just let me know.”

After Emilie’s offer he started to imagine himself owning a pet. He knew a dog was out, he worked too much and didn’t want to have to leave the poor thing home alone all day. He didn’t know anything about birds, so those were a no and he wasn’t interested in reptiles. He couldn’t see himself with a rodent, they were nice enough but the thought of holding something so tiny in his hands made him nervous, he would be so afraid of hurting it. Maybe something like a rabbit or chinchilla or a guinea pig but he didn’t really know anything about taking care of them.

Eventually he decided on some fish. They were relatively easy to take care off, they wouldn’t miss him when he was gone during the day and they had the added benefit of serving as home décor; his mom and Bitty had been ganging up on him over his severely under decorated apartment.

Which was how Jack found himself at Petsmart, pretending to look at the fish tanks while glancing into the cat adoption room out of the corner of his eye.

 

 

Eventually he gave up the pretense of staring at the tanks and figured it couldn’t hurt to go in and look. It’s not like he would take one home, Bitty had been complaining that there was a mouse in the Haus, at most he would just suggest one for Bitty. He would offer to take care of it while Bits was in Georgia, but it would be Bitty’s cat. Cats weren’t for him.

That was until he glanced at the cage in the bottom far corner. The cat inside wasn’t particularly easy on the eyes. He was worse for wear with a torn ear and scar running across his eyelid. His tail had an unnatural crook and his gray tortoiseshell coat didn’t have any shine to it.

While Jack stared, the cat cracked open his eyes, one a vibrant green and the one with the scar cloudy with blindness, before letting out a huff and setting his head back down on his paws. Her heard someone behind him clear their throat.

 

“That’s Jaws,” said a teenage girl in the standard blue Petsmart polo, “he came from a local rescue we partner with. He was a stray for a long time, neutered as part of a TNR program, released, brought into a shelter, adopted, escaped and then brought back when his owners found him again and realized he was blind in the one eye. It doesn’t affect him at all, but he’s not as…put together…as some of the other cats so he’s been having some trouble getting adopted.”

 

“What’s his fee?” Jack asked, purely out of curiosity, of course.

 

“He’s actually free.” She answered, “A donor stepped up and payed it for him so that he might have an easier chance at finding him a home. He’s been at the rescue for about a year now. But he’s only 3 and really sweet cat once he gets to know you.”

 

“What would he need in a home?” Jack asked, again totally out of curiosity.

 

“He really just needs someone to love on him”, the girl explained, “His foster family said he got along well with their other pets and wasn’t shy of strangers but he definitely has favorite people and would probably do best in a home with an individual or a young couple without kids. He’s pretty active and likes to play so he would be too much for little ones. He’s polite and actually pretty outgoing for a cat, but he really just needs a stable environment. He’s been in and out of shelters and on and off the streets for too long. “

 

“How can I adopt him?” Jack questioned, no longer out of curiosity. “We have some paperwork and…….”

 

* * *

 

 

 

Which was how Jack went to Petsmart to get some goldfish and left with a free cat and over $600 of organic freeze dried cat food, cat treats, beds, brushes, a self-cleaning litter box, toys, an automatic waterer, food bowls, two cat trees, two collars, a harness and a leash.

 

It didn’t take long for Jaws to be renamed. The name seemed like it belonged to something more vicious than an 8-pound cat who mostly just wanted to eat, sleep, cuddle and play with the laces on Jack’s skates or to bat around a stray hockey puck. Jack eventually settled on the name Puck.

 

Puck fit right into Jack’s life. It took him a little bit to start trusting Jack, but once he did Jack couldn’t have asked for a better pet. Puck would happily walk around on the leash outside, never made a mess or had an accident, he made himself right at home on Jack’s lap in the evenings while he read or watched T.V. and woke Jack up for breakfast exactly 3-minutes before Jack’s alarm every morning. He didn’t make a fuss when Jack was gone on roadies or a visit to Samwell, he had Emilie wrapped around his paw, and much like Jack, absolutely adored Bitty.

 

 

It was Bitty who started the Instagram: Puck_Zimmerman.

It had mostly been a joke. Bitty couldn’t get over the picture Jack and Puck made the first time he saw Jack put him in his harness and take him for a walk around the apartment complex. He figured the world deserved to see this massive hockey player on a walk through a garden with his tiny cat. _This boy._

Of course, it didn’t take long for the rest of the world to become almost as enamored with them as Bitty was.

There were videos of Jack using his stick to swat a puck across the floor of the living room and Puck expertly batting it back at him. Pictures of Jack in the kitchen with Puck perched on his shoulder. Pictures of Puck and Jack on walks. Even a picture of Puck, wearing a tiny Falconers jersey, perched on Bitty’s lap while he watched practice.

 

The Instagram really blew up after the Falconers started joining in on the fun.

Bitty liked getting pictures of Puck at the arena, they got a ton of likes and the cat enjoyed getting out, so he tended to take him along when he watched practices.

The team of course loved it. Puck always wore some sort of cat-sized outfit to keep him warm, usually a falconer’s jersey or beanie (which Tater, in particular, found hilarious) and was fond of loudly announcing his presence whenever there was a quiet moment on the ice. So eventually pictures of Puck started ending up on the rest of the teams Instagram.

 

It was a Thirdy who could really be credited with Puck’s rise to stardom however.

He had given Jack a go-pro as a gift to mark the end of his first year with the team. He knew Jack was interested in photography and that Bitty was gaining popularity on Youtube, so he figured between the two of them it would get a lot of use. The suggestion that he put it on Puck’s harness when he visited was a joke.

Bitty called George about Puck Cam the next day.

 

The videos turned Puck into a minor celebrity.

They weren’t long and mostly featured him roaming the locker room and stands but people couldn’t get enough of the tiny quirky cat.

Eventually, with Jack’s help, the Falconers started selling Puck plushies in the gift shop and a calendar consisting of pictures of Puck with various team members, with 50% of the proceeds going to various animal rescues.

 

After Bitty and Jack officially came out and Bitty had moved into Jack’s apartment in providence, Puck became a fixture in Bitty’s videos as well. He could often be found sitting happily on Bitty’s lap while he was vlogging and particularly enjoyed making himself heard in Bitty’s cooking videos.

 

It was around this time that ESPN got into the fun. The Falconers were looking good to take the Cup this year, and ESPN wanted to a feature on the teams that were in the running. When they called George about which players she wanted featured she joked that Puck was the most important Falconer, before suggesting Jack, Thirdy, Marty, Tater and Snowy.

ESPN set up interviews with all of them, including Puck, who wore a bowtie and tiny cat sport coat. The video of course went very viral, very fast.

 

Which is how Jack Zimmerman’s 8-pound, beat-up, stray unseated Kitt Purrson as the most famous cat in hockey.


End file.
